Hypothesis: Wearing red on the day of an exam “energizes” the brain and improves performance.
Independent variable:
Shirt color
Educational background
Type of test (SAT)
Ethnicity
School
Grade
GPA
Testing center
Room temperature
Time of day
Weather
Length of test (4 hours)
Number of students participating (100)
Dependent variable: results of the exam.
Students will not have taken the SAT beforehand and will be freshmen from KIS. They will be randomly selected with roughly equal numbers of girls and boys.
This will be a double blind study so that those providing the shirts will be unaware that they are participating in a study. This is to avoid self-fulfilling prophecy. Half of the students will be given a red shirt; the other half will be given shirt of any other color.
The results will be compared to find if the difference in performance, if one exists, is due to the independent variable and not to error or chance occurrence.
Independent variable:
Dependent variable: results of the exam.